The present invention relates, in general, to coupons and other retail sales incentives, and, more particularly, to software, systems and methods for providing cross-merchandising incentives in specialty departments, preferably occurring at or near the point of product selection by a consumer.
Manufacturers and retailers use a variety of incentive mechanisms to motivate consumer shopping and purchasing behavior. Shopping behavior refers generally to the selection of one retail store over another, whereas purchasing behavior refers to the selection of particular products to purchase irrespective of the retail store. Historically, these incentives take the form of discounts or coupons that encourage store or brand loyalty, test price points, or simply encourage a consumer to purchase a particular product.
Given the expense of incentive systems to manufacturers and retailers, it remains a continuing problem to improve efficiency. Coupon distribution has a significant impact on efficiency. Coupon distribution will affect who receives a coupon, how the coupon is received, and when the coupon is received. Any or all of these factors may affect the consumers ability or willingness to redeem the coupon. Untargeted coupons distributed through newspapers and magazines, for example, generally have a very low redemption rate. Most people are familiar with receiving coupons for products they do not use, often at inconvenient times. Direct mail coupons offer the potential of targeting based on demographics, or upon consumer-specific shopping history. These targeted methods have higher redemption rates, but remain relatively inefficient.
Recently, point-of-sale (POS) coupons have been introduced. POS coupon systems enable a retailer to print coupons that are specifically relevant to a particular consumer based on items purchased during a particular transaction, and/or based upon shopping history. These coupons are intended to provide and incentive for the consumer to return to the issuing store at some time in the future. The coupons can be based on products purchased to either improve brand loyalty, or to encourage the consumer to try a competing product (e.g., house brands). Moreover, POS coupons may encourage purchase of other goods or services offered by the retailer such as pharmacy, photo processing, or video rental.
Commercially available printers may be used for generating coupons at a point-of-sale, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212 issued on Feb. 2, 1988 and entitled Method and Apparatus for Dispensing Discount Coupons or as further disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,672 issued Mar. 20, 1990 and entitled Method and Apparatus for Dispensing Discount Coupons. As disclosed in these patents, systems may be provided to generate coupons at the point-of-sale based upon the type of product purchase. In the disclosures of the above-captioned two patents, a coupon relating to a particular type of a product is generated based upon a bar code reader determining that a triggering or competing product has just been purchased by the consumer.
In spite of the high level of control promised by POS coupon systems, they provide their incentive after a sale is complete. In many cases, an incentive to buy brand Y next time has little effect when the consumer just purchased brand Xt may be weeks or months until the product must be purchased again. Even when the incentives relate to products not purchased, it is unlikely that the consumer will re-enter the store immediately to take advantage of the incentive. Hence, the consumer is likely to misplace, discard, or simply forget about the coupon before it can be redeemed.
An alternative coupon distribution method is to attach coupons to products themselves either as instantly redeemable coupons or for redemption upon a subsequent purchase. Such coupons can be for the product to which they are attached (e.g., a box of cereal), or for complementary products (e.g., a coupon for milk attached to a box of cereal). In addition to manufacture coupons, specialty areas of grocery stores such as meat, fish, deli, pharmacy and similar departments may use attached coupons to provide various incentives as well. For example, a bakery department may attach a discount coupon to some packages in order to encourage sales of day old bread.
However, these prior incentive programs are not specifically used for cross-merchandising other products or services within the store before the consumer has completed a purchase transaction. A cross-merchandising incentive is one that encourages the consumer to purchase a different product from the product to which the coupon or incentive is most directly associated. Until now, incentive systems have failed to use the valuable consumer interaction that occurs at the point of product selection to attempt to influence consumer behavior in the purchase of products that are different from the product that is being selected.
Hence, a need exists for a system and method that provides cross-merchandising incentives in specialty departments, preferably occurring at or near the point of product selection by a consumer.